Fortune's stroke

Sanga's beard-tugging grew more vigorous. 'There is one possible explanation. Especially dealing with Belisarius.'

Lord Damodara cocked his head, peering up at the tall Rajput next him. 'A trap,' he stated. Sanga nodded.

Damodara began pacing back and forth slowly. His hands, in one of the Malwa lord's characteristic gestures, were clasped in front of him as if he were in prayer. But the short, jabbing, back-and-forth motion of the hands conveyed concentration rather than piety.

'You could be right,' he mused. A sudden bark-half-humorous, half-exasperated. 'Subtle bait! But that is the way the man thinks.'

Damodara suddenly stopped his pacing and turned to face Sanga squarely. 'What do you advise?' he demanded.

Sanga stopped his beard-tugging, and took a deep breath.

'Go north,' he said firmly. 'It may be a trap, Lord Damodara. He may be laying an ambush for us. But traps can be turned against the trapper. A trap designed for a wolf will not necessarily hold a tiger. Our troops are excellent, and our army outnumbers his by two to one.'

Damodara nodded. 'Closer to three to one, I think.' The Malwa lord's eyes grew a bit vacant. Again, his hands were clasped before him in the gesture of prayer. But there was no emphatic jabbing, this time. The hands were still, except for a slight flexing of the fingers.

Sanga, recognizing the signs, waited. As usual, Damodara did not take long to make his decision.

'I agree,' the Lord said firmly. 'We will go north.' He barked another laugh. 'With our eyes wide open! And-'

There was a sudden commotion at the entrance to the pavilion. Damodara and Sanga turned. They saw that two of the Lord's Rajput guards were barring the way of a Ye-tai who, for his part, was expressing his anger in no uncertain terms.

It was General Mihirakula, the commander of Damodara's Ye-tai troops.

'Let him in!' called out Damodara. The guards stepped aside, and Mihirakula stormed into the pavilion. He cast an angry glance at Rana Sanga before coming to a halt in front of Lord Damodara.

'What is this nonsense I hear?' demanded Mihirakula. 'I was just informed by one of your'-another angry glance at Sanga-'Rajput dispatch riders that we are to make preparations for a march. Is this true? '

The question was obviously rhetorical. Mihirakula did not wait for an answer before gesturing angrily at the mountains visible through the open flap of the pavilion.

'Why are we not charging the stinking Romans?' he demanded. 'We will brush them aside like flies!' Again, Mihirakula glared at Sanga. 'If the Rajputs are too fearful, then my Ye-tai will lead the way!'

The Ye-tai general was a big man, heavy in the shoulders and thick in the chest, but Sanga was as much taller than he as Mihirakula was than Damodara. The Rajput drew himself up to his full towering height. His hands were clasped tightly behind his back, but it was obvious from the tension in Sanga's powerful arms that he was barely controlling his anger.

Damodara intervened quickly. He placed a slight, restraining hand on Sanga. To the Ye-tai general, he stated firmly: 'The orders were mine, General Mihirakula.' Damodara made his own gesture toward the mountains. 'The Roman fieldworks here are too powerful. But,' he added, overriding the Ye-tai's gathering splutter of protest, 'my scouts tell me that we may find a way to the north.'

Again, he overrode Mihirakula's protest. This time, saying with a cheerful smile: 'The scouts think there will be opposition, of course. So I was thinking of using you and your men as my vanguard element in the next march.'

The smile Damodara was bestowing on Mihirakula was positively a beam, now. 'To clear the way for us, of course. So that we can finally be done with these damned mountains.'

Mihirakula relaxed, a bit. He glanced at Sanga, once again, before replying to Damodara. But the glance had more of satisfaction in it than anger.

'Soon, do you think? My men are very restless.'

Damodara shrugged. 'Soon enough. Within a week, I imagine.' He made a little, apologetic grimace. 'Marching through these mountains, as you know, is not a quick business.'

All apology and goodwill vanished. Damodara's next words were spoken in a tone of steel: 'And now, General Mihirakula, you will carry out my commands. At once.'

The Ye-tai commander knew that tone. For all his barbarous nature, Mihirakula was not a fool. He bowed his head, stiffly, and departed from the pavilion.

After he was gone, Sanga let out a short, angry grunt. 'My Rajputs can lead-' he began, but Damodara waved him silent.

'I am well aware of that, Sanga. But the Ye-tai are getting restless.' He gave Sanga a shrewd glance. 'So are your Rajputs, for that matter, even if they control their impatience better.'

Damodara pointed at the map. His finger made little wandering gestures, as if retracing the tortuous route of the past weeks. 'Good soldiers grow impatient with this kind of endless maneuvering. Sooner or later, they will demand action. You know that as well as I do.'

Grudgingly, Sanga nodded.

Damodara spread his hands. 'So let the Ye-tai lead the way, for now. If there is a trap, they will spring it. To be frank, I'd rather see them bloodied than you.'

It was plain enough, from the look on his face, that Sanga found his commander's cold-bloodedness distasteful. But Damodara took no offense. He simply chuckled.

'I am Malwa, Rana Sanga, not Rajput. Practical.'

Two days later, Belisarius was studying a map spread across a table in his own field headquarters. All of his top commanders were joining him in the enterprise. Those included, in addition to Maurice and Vasudeva: Cyril, who had succeeded Agathius in command of the Greek cataphracts after Agathius had been crippled at the Battle of the Nehar Malka; and Bouzes and Coutzes, the two young Thracian brothers who commanded the Syrian contingents in Belisarius' army.

Abbu entered, pushing his way through the leather flaps which served as an entrance. The chief of Belisarius' Arab scouts did not wait for an invitation to speak before advancing to the center of the tent and giving his report.

The old bedouin did not give the map so much as a glance. Abbu was a stern traditionalist. Despite his deep (if unspoken) admiration for Belisarius, the Arab considered the map an alarming omen-either of the Roman general's early senility, or of his rapid descent into modern decadence.

'The Malwa are heading north,' he announced, 'toward that saddle pass I told you about. It is obvious they are expecting an ambush. They have their Ye-tai contingents leading the way.' Abbu grunted approvingly. 'He's no fool, that Malwa commander. He'll feed the barbarians into the fire-good riddance-before following through with his Rajputs.'

'Before trying to follow through,' said Cyril.

Abbu shook his head. The bedouin's countenance, always dour, grew positively gloomy. 'They will succeed. The pass is too wide, and the slopes on either side not steep enough. The north slope is especially shallow. They will be able to use their numbers against us. It won't be easy, but they'll force their way through.'

Cyril began to bridle at the Arab's easy assumption of defeat, but Belisarius intervened.

'That's just as well,' he stated forcefully. 'I want to steer them north. So we'll put up a stiff resistance at the pass itself, but withdraw before our men get mangled.' He bent over, studying the map; then pointed with his finger.

'If this is accurate, once they get through the pass their easiest route will be to follow this small river to the northwest.' He cocked an eye at Abbu. The Arab scowled fiercely, but said nothing-which was his way of admitting that the newfangled absurdity could not be faulted.

Belisarius kept his eye on Abbu. 'And if I'm reading this map correctly,' he added, 'when we fall back and set our positions southwest of the pass, our fieldworks will be too strong for the Malwa to